Welcome to the Family, or the Allen Angst Tango
by not bitter just twisted
Summary: Song-fic to 'Welcome to the Family' by Avenged Sevenfold. Basically Allen angsting in his cell. Allen can be very angsty. Why don't you read it? One-Shot.


**So I was looking through Fanfiction, and I was horrified to find that this had never been done before! It just seems so obvious. I usually abhor fan fictions that use songs in them, but come on people! How could no-one have thought of this before! Exclamation marks!**

Welcome to the Family

_Hey kid!  
>Do I have your attention?<br>I know the way you've been living  
>Life's so reckless, tragedy endless<br>Welcome to the family_

Allen buried his head in his hands, leaning against the cold brick of his prison cell. Prison cell! What had he done to deserve this? Nothing. Yet here he was, refusing all food because he was afraid it might have truth serum in it. He was a nervous wreck, that was for certain. He was too tired to lift his head, and yet at the same time he could feel the Noah inside him bursting to be released. 

_Hey!  
>There's something missing<br>Only time will alter your vision  
>Never in question, lethal injection<br>Welcome to the family_

He rubbed his eyes. Ah yes, the Noah. Now that was a mystery, wasn't it? It wriggled around inside him, appearing every time he closed his eyes or passed a reflective surface. Neah. Such an innocent name. Who was he, really? He _seemed_ evil, but it didn't make any sense to Allen. Why would Mana and Cross have trusted him so much if they had known he was evil? Yet he wanted to become the Millennium Earl! And speaking of the Millennium Earl, why had he seemed so bashful last time they had met? Nothing seemed to make sense to his starvation addled brain.

_Not long ago you'd find the answers were so crystal clear  
>Within a day you found yourself living in constant fear<br>Can you look at yourself now?  
>Can you look at yourself?<br>You can't win this fight_

Allen rubbed his cursed eye and gave a defiant frown. Whether he was good or evil, there was no way he was giving in to that bastard. He was Allen Walker, and no-one else. He gave a sinister chuckle and closed his eyes. Like he was only one person. _Allen Walker, exorcist. Allen Walker, friend. Allen Walker, weapon. Allen Walker, traitor. Allen Walker, Noah. Allen Walker, child. Allen Walker, circus freak._ How the hell was he supposed to stay himself if he didn't even know who that was?

_And in a way it seems there's no one to call  
>When our thoughts are so numb and<br>Our feelings unsure  
>We all have emptiness inside,<br>We all have answers to find  
>But you can't win this fight!<em> 

There was no way he could do this. He might as well give up now. He just felt so... _tried_, all the time. The weight of all his friends depending on him, of the whole _world _depending on him... well, it was tough for a fifteen year old. He wondered vaguely what it felt like to be a normal teenage boy. It must be nice. But that wasn't him. No, he was doomed to sit in a small cell rotting where no-one could help him. He looked at the seals on his arm reflectively, and then drove it into the wall.

_Hey kid!  
>I have to question<br>What's with the violent aggression?  
>Details blurry, lost him too early<br>Welcome to the family  
><em> 

'Goddamn Innocence!' It was the reason for the whole mess, wasn't it? The stupid innocence. What was it, some sort of magical inanimate object? Yet it had a consciousness, Allen could _tell_. It had definitely been controlling Lenalee, and who knows who else.

Allen wondered whether he would have been a normal child if he'd known his parents. He would never have known Mana, and Mana would have never died, and...

No.

Allen felt his cursed eye again. He could never regret the past. If he regretted the death of Mana, than he regretted Mana himself, and he could never do that. Whatever faults the clown had possessed, he was the only real father Allen had ever known and he couldn't resent him.

_Hey!  
>Why won't you listen?<br>Can't help the people you're missing  
>It's been done, a casualty re-run<br>Welcome to the family_

The reason he was in here? He was here because he wouldn't tell them Alma and Kanda's location. Of course, that was the excuse. Central knew that they were probably dead by now, so why did they search for them? They were afraid of him, and that was the real reason.

Kanda. Allen felt an almost physical blow to his chest at the thought that his friend could be dead. He knew that it was inevitable; he had been dying since he was created. Yet Allen hated the idea of any of his friends dying, and the idea of solid, permanent Kanda dying was so... unthinkable.

_I try and help you with the things that can't be justified  
>I need to warn you that there is no way to rationalize<br>So have you figured it out now?  
>So have you figured it out?<br>You can't win this fight  
><em> 

It made him feel unbelievably angry to think of them going after Kanda and Alma. They had created the poor, twisted creatures; couldn't they now just leave them in peace to unravel? But no, they had to keep prodding at them like the science experiments they were. Allen was starting to wonder who the bad guys really were. Central? The Noah? Yet it was Central that had created the second and third exorcists, Central that had locked him here, sent Leverrier and killed Cross Marian (although he still had his doubts about that). Where was he supposed to turn? What was he supposed to do?

_And in a way it seems there's no one to call  
>When our thoughts are so numb and<br>Our feelings unsure  
>We all have emptiness inside,<br>We all have answers to find  
>But you can't win this fight!<br>_

How could this have happened? Just a while ago he'd been laughing with Lavi about Kanda's grumpy attitude while Lenalee scolded them for being so mean. Where had that world gone? It had been nice back then. There had still been danger, but there was companionship and warmth. Life had a point back then. Before all of this ark business, before he was the pianist, before his arm had become a sword like the Earl's, before Alma had appeared, before Lenalee had been forced to take back her innocence. Allen smacked his hand into the wall again, trying as hard as he could to stop himself breaking down into madness.

_Gunning for you and all mankind,  
>I've lost my mind<br>Psychotic rabid dementia  
>I won't be fine<br>_

It was him. Everything was always left to him in the end; the fight was his call, his win. Why did it have to be that way? Surely there were older and more powerful exorcists who could save the world. But of course, that would never truly happen. How could it? He was the one they'd been waiting for. The 'destroyer of time'. A title given to him, blindly thrown at him casually with barely any thought to what it might mean to him, to them, to the world. Sure, it could mean the Millennium Earl. It could. But what if it didn't?

Allen closed his eyes.

_I see, you're a king who's been dethroned  
>Cast out, in a world you've never known<br>Stand down, place your weapons by your side  
>It's our war, in the end we'll surely lose but that's alright!<em>

_So have you figured it out now?  
>So have you figured it out?<br>_

If it didn't, then there would be problems.

An image of his dream filtered across vision: Lenalee weeping, a world devastated and rubble piling up under the light of a crescent moon. Destroyer of time? How on Earth was that a good thing? A title with the word 'destroyer'? Allen knew he wasn't a destroyer. He was a rescuer, a saviour, a leader, an inspirer, a white knight. But what if the prophesy wasn't about him, but the Noah that lived inside of him? There was no way to know what he was.

There was something he was missing... 

_And in a way it seems there's no one to call  
>When our thoughts are so numb and<br>Our feelings unsure  
>We all have emptiness inside,<br>We all have answers to find  
>But you can't win this fight<br>_

Why didn't he just give up? Lie in this cell and die? He could just let everything happen the way it and everyone else seemed to want it to go. He could let it all happen. And why not? Why not just let the world burn? He'd become an exorcist to fight the bad guys, to defeat evil and be a real person for the first time in his life. But now the good side seemed almost as evil as the bad side. If there was no good side, what was he supposed to do? He might as well stop trying.

_Deep inside,  
>where nothing's fine<br>I lost my mind  
>You're not invited,<br>so step aside  
>I've lost my,<em>

_Deep inside,  
>where nothing's fine<br>I lost my mind  
>You're not invited,<br>so step aside  
>I've lost my...<em>

But he couldn't. There _was _a reason to keep going. He had to keep going for Alma, and for Kanda, and all those affected by the Order's twisted experiments. He had to keep going for Lenalee and Komui, for Daisya and Johnny, for the Eastern branch. He had to keep going for those whose lives had been lost, and those whose lives would be lost. For Link, who kept trying to make him eat and would be there at any moment, for Cross, wherever he was.

And for Mana.

'Don't stop. Keep walking.' The words meant something to him, not only like he'd heard them before but like they were part of his very being. A whispered echo in his head that became distorted. That road led to madness.

Allen shifted against the wall and sat up a little straighter, lifting his chin whilst still avoiding his reflection mirrored in the dark glass of the window. He had to keep going for all those people, because it was his duty, his job, and nothing would stop him. He was a helper, after all. If all sides available were grey, then he'd just have to create his own side. Hunted by both, it wouldn't be easy. Yet it was his only choice, and what's more, the right one.

Finally, the manacled boy spoke to the empty cell.

'They're going to think I'm mad, aren't they.'

**Sooo, what d'ya think? A little random and maybe boring, but this song had to be done. See you all.**


End file.
